


great-hearted, lion-hearted

by jonphaedrus



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Spoilers for Book 6: Return of the Thief (Queen's Thief), love is the thing with feathers, you know....achilles ;)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:40:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: He remembered well the waters of the Aracthus. The gods did not save a man from drowning thrice.
Relationships: Relius/Teleus (Queen's Thief)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	great-hearted, lion-hearted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hkafterdark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hkafterdark/gifts).



> this ended up being less about return of the thief (....or is it)?
> 
> thank you for giving me the chance to write about these good good boys

The very first thing that Teleus did was hit him, and none-too-gently.

Or, at least, that was what he _wished_ he did, standing awkwardly at the foot of the throne, making his oath to Queen and country. Here Teleus was—the Queen’s bought man, paid with coin and the promise of blood—pledging loyalty before a man who had never been asked for payment in kind. Nothing so base and simple as bribery for the loyalty of the Secretary of the Archives, who stood a handspan from the Queen, today wearing a cloak that had only been mended twice.

Perhaps if he had been willing to stoop, Relius could have afforded something new.

But this was how it always was. Teleus was hardly a loyal patriot, but he had always felt drawn to the Queen, and seeing her up close—Attolia Irene, still hardly a child, but eyes sharp and cold as flint despite the baby fat still on her cheeks—he would have pledged his loyalty for no cost. Not even a smile.

He would not ask for that which he had not earned. And he had not earned it, for whatever great aspirations Attolia Irene might have held for a society ruled not by birth, in the end, the bastard son of a house steward was easier to trust than a refugee-turned-soldier. Mercenaries were hired by coin. And it was that knowledge, the unfairness of it, that made Relius grated so on Teleus’ nerves.

He couldn’t stand even just ten more minutes of Relius’ smug, smiling, knowing face, his artfully windswept curls, his shabby clothes that he insisted upon pretending were not shabby.

In front of Attolia, Teleus could keep a straight face and do his job—because he had to, it was his responsibility. His Queen would not tolerate her two most loyal men fighting between themselves. Even if Relius—

Teleus wouldn’t say Relius wasn’t loyal. Relius was loyal. He had to be, or they’d all have been killed by enterprising barons, assassins, or one-another long ago. Attolia had never bought Relius’ loyalty: he had handed her his heart on a platter and begged for her trust. Attolia had bought Teleus’ loyalty with coin and honeyed words, and he had let her believe that was how the transaction needed to be done. Better by far to play by the rules Relius had taught her than to change the game itself.

If anything, Teleus would expect to question himself more.

So perhaps it was not loyalty.

Perhaps it was just Relius’ smug face.

So, no, Teleus would not punch Relius in front of Attolia. Not in the castle, not when he could feel her cold, imperious judgment, the ever-present knowledge he could _let her down_ and she would know. Not during work hours, not when he was Captain of her Guard, staring down their opposition and daring her rebellious barons to try him. No visible cracks in their façade, nothing that could be manipulated, used against her.

But he _would_ punch Relius when they were both most of the way into their cups.

And he did.

Hard.

In the jaw.

The winebar they had picked tonight was of a decidedly seedy reputation, low-cost and public enough that they could talk about whatever they wanted. You were never safer than where it was too much effort to eavesdrop, when listening and watching was impossible when every off-duty guard, old drunk, and pickpocket in the city was stacked up on top of one another.

Although it helped that Relius bribed the pickpockets.

And now, the room was silent. Teleus, breathing heavy, stood there staring down at Relius, who had one hand pressed to his cheek, silently working his jaw. Teleus hadn’t hit hard enough to do more than bruise, but even still, on Relius’ fair-skinned face, beneath the finest hint of stubble, it would show. Everyone would know someone had punched him. Teleus just prayed that Attolia didn’t know _who_ had punched him.

“Why?” Relius said at last, blinking up at him. Teleus had, apparently, stunned him nearly to silence. Drunk as he was, in more cups than he should have been, his head pounding with his own heartbeat and his vision unsteady, Teleus stared back, his tongue dry and stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Why indeed?

“You piss me off,” he said at last, breathing heavy, and then bent down to offer the other man a hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Relius took it, let Teleus help him back up to his feet. The bar seemed to take that as a sign that everything was well—or would be—before too long, and the rest of the patrons turned back to what they had been doing, as if nothing had happened.

Relius righted his stool. He sat back down, almost daintily, and eventually, Teleus joined him.

If Relius had hooked the stool out from under him, Teleus could hardly have blamed him. But Relius didn’t, sat there in equal silence. Teleus stared down into his cup, still half-empty. Work, the day-to-day of the running of a kingdom on the verge of both collapse and ascension, seemed to have fallen off of Relius’ shoulders the moment he had hit the floor.

“You’re a soldier,” Relius did not looking at him as he spoke.

“So, so, so.”

“Who do you believe is the greater warrior, Achilles or Hektor?”

Teleus stared into his cup, narrowed his eyes. A question that straightforward never had a single answer—not when Relius was involved. There was something hiding there; a second layer to the question. Teleus wet his lips, turned it over in his mind.

“Achilles,” he said at last, and Relius picked his cup up and smiled.

The following evening, Teleus found a book of love poetry placed on his pillow, as if it had always been there. Waiting for him.

The first thing he had noticed about Relius was that for all the man was quick to smile, it never reached his eyes. He was a spy, after all, even if he used a false title nobody believed so that he could deny it in polite company. For all that he was a few years older than Teleus, when Relius smiled, even falsely, he looked younger.

Not softer, perhaps. No, not softer. Not kinder.

But perhaps more honest.

And that honesty had to count for something, even when it came wrapped in cloak and dagger, one lie at a time. And Relius smiled at Teleus.

How easy it was, the next time they fell into their cups beside one-another, to kiss Relius instead of striking him, to feel the corners of his sharp jaw, fingers in his stubble. The taste of liquor on his lips was a better taste than the lies he usually held onto, or the secrets he bought and sold.

Poetry, philosophy, love—all three were art for the sake of art. All three equally at odds with a man of the blade. Emotions ran high on a battlefield, but rarely did love bloom on a battlefield.

Teleus had always been drawn to that sort of beauty, to the moments between. War and conflict were far from never-ceasing. Between heartbeats, the world would fall still and silent, and in those seconds there was nothing to _do_ but to think. Half of winning was thinking faster, smarter, and better than your opponent.

(These are the lessons he will have to learn, again and again, throughout his life. The hard way. Underestimating your opponent is a death sentence. Nobody thinks faster than Eugenedies. Unfortunately for Eugenedies.)

In this, they were suited. Thinking came naturally to both of them, and thinking turned to reading and talking, wiling away the long dark hours of night pretending not to speak of romance, while discussing the loveliest of poetry. It grew up around them the same way a vine did across a shady wall, out of the way and forgotten. Bit by bit, while the gardeners didn’t notice, one brick at a time through the years until the whole structural integrity of the wall was compromised, solely because nobody had thought to check and pull down the old trellis. To leave it would undermine everything; to tear it away would destroy it. You could only prune and search for something like harmony with it.

Teleus pretended not to be a jealous man, because you could only learn to live with it, although he was. He was jealous of Relius—not for having other lovers, but for the fact that Relius never even seemed to be aware of how well-loved he was. He constantly went looking for _something_ , as if he did not have a surfeit of it right outside his door. Teleus was jealous of how easy it was to take that love for granted.

But, he supposed, at the end of the day, it was his poetry that Relius kept on the shelf. It was Teleus who carried him out of the dungeons. It was Teleus who sat by his bedside and spoon-fed him soup.

It was Teleus who sat there by the campfire, eyes unseeing, and realized Relius had triggered one trap too many. Had risked his luck and tried the gods full-sore.

It was Teleus who had to realize Relius would never be coming home.

The very first thing that Teleus did was hit him, and as gently as could be. The softest possible thump on the arm, a punch he pulled before he even swung. Even still, Relius quaked under the strike. It wasn’t even a strike. It was—

Relius’ face crumpled. His posture sagged.

“I suppose I deserved that,” he said at last, hardly above a whisper. His voice quavered even as his body did.

“So, so, so,” Teleus replied. Relius looked down at the floor between them, and the silence grew long almost before it even began. Gently, gently, his hands almost shaking, Teleus reached up, felt the line of Relius’ jaw. Still sharp, even if his skin was thin and soft. Still the same face. Still the same man, under all of it. His cloak might have been muddy and torn and mended in one-too-many places, but he was still himself. Beneath the ruined feathers the same cock still could crow at dawn.

Teleus leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together. Relius huffed a laugh, a noise halfway between exasperated sigh and longing. “I’m not made of paper. Teleus, you don’t need to treat me as if I’ll break.” Honeyed words, a lie wrapped in sweets, and Teleus had spent long enough at the court of Attolia to know poison when he saw it.

Teleus shut his eyes when they began to burn, pressed his cheek into the top of the other man’s head, and pulled him close. As close as he could, as if he could crush Relius tightly enough to his chest that he could be certain the man would never leave, never come to harm again.

“Teleus,” a hand, on his chest, at the nape of his neck, on his cheek. “Oh, Teleus...are you crying?”

“I failed you once,” Teleus whispered, pressed his face into Relius’ narrow shoulder, tried to forget that the other man’s frame was now bowed and broken as if he was ten, twenty years older. His voice came out hoarse and thick, and each word felt as if it weighed beyond counting. “I failed you and left you in those dungeons. What kind of guard am I if I cannot protect the things—the ones—“ the words choked off in his throat.

A guard who could not guard the things that he loved was not a guard at all.

How simple a thing it had seemed to write the secret thoughts of his heart, and know Relius would pretend they were nothing but artful poetry. How simple a thing to whisper them in the dark of night, as two heads upon one pillow, and let Relius call it philosophy. But in daylight, where the gods themselves could hear and know? Where there was nothing else to name it but that which it was?

Teleus was no fool.

He remembered well the waters of the Aracthus. The gods did not save a man from drowning thrice.

“But you came to get me, every time,” Relius said at last, kissed the tears from his eyes. “You carried me out once. You would carry me out again.”

How good it was, for once, to let Relius carry _him_.


End file.
